Saturday, March 17, 2018

I recently received a couple children's picture books to review. I'm not particularly impressed by either.

I Like Bees, I Don't Like Honey, written by Sam Bishop and illustrated by Fiona Lumbers, starts out OK, with rhyming text and colorful full-page (or double-page spread) pictures describing one child and what s/he likes and (sometimes) dislikes. But every four pages, there are the questions "What do you LIKE? What DON'T you like?" with numerous kids on the page and speech balloons giving their likes and (often oddly-contrasting) dislikes. It gets old fast, and I think hurts the message that everyone is different. I think the book would have been better with only one of the questions spreads, near the very end. The last page has mostly-empty speech bubbles with just "I like" or "I don't like" in them and plenty of room for kids who can write to add their own words.

The Marvelous Mustard Seed, written by Amy-Jill Levine and Sandy Eisenbert Sasso and illustrated by Margaux Meganck, is based on Jesus' parable, but isn't a retelling. Instead, the message is that a small child, just like a tiny seed, has great potential. The authors are a rabbi and a professor of Jewish studies and the New Testament. There is a note for parents and teachers at the end of the book.